Skopje travel guide

Top 10 sights in Skopje

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1

   Skopje Fortress

   The fortress on the ridge above the old bazaar, whose sixth-century walls were built with stone carted from the ruins of Roman Scupi. It has been rebuilt after earthquakes repeatedly, most recently after 1963, and the walk along the wall is free.

   TiqetsKlook
2. 

   2© kallerna · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Millennium Cross

   A sixty-six-metre steel cross put up on Mount Vodno in 2002 to mark two thousand years of Christianity, lit at night and visible from most of the city. A cable car runs to it, and it is the most contested piece of skyline in North Macedonia.

   TiqetsKlook
3. 

   3© Dimitar Georgievski · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Scupi

   The Roman colony from which Skopje descends, settled by legionary veterans in the first century AD. An earthquake in 518 destroyed it and the survivors moved to the site of the modern city; its theatre and baths are being excavated in open fields.

   TiqetsKlook
4. 

   4© Antti T. Nissinen from Finland · CC BY 2.0

   Mustafa Paşa Mosque

   A mosque of 1492 in the old bazaar, built by an Ottoman governor, with a single large dome, a marble fountain and the octagonal tomb of the founder's daughter in its garden. It came through the 1963 earthquake and has been restored twice since.

   TiqetsKlook
5. 

   5

   Tauresium

   A site near the village of Taor identified as Tauresium, the birthplace of Justinian I — the emperor who codified Roman law and built Hagia Sophia was born in a village in what is now North Macedonia. Excavation has found a fortified settlement of the right date.

   TiqetsKlook
6. 

   6© Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Porta Macedonia

   A triumphal arch of 2012 on Pella Square, part of the Skopje 2014 programme that filled the capital with monuments and neoclassical facades in a few years. Its reliefs run through Macedonian history and its cost was fiercely argued over.

   TiqetsKlook
7. 

   7

   Church of St. Panteleimon

   A small Byzantine church of 1164 in a monastery above the city, whose frescoes are a landmark in the history of art — the Lamentation, with the Virgin's face pressed to her son's, shows a human grief that Byzantine painting had not attempted before.

   TiqetsKlook
8. 

   8© kallerna · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Skopje Aqueduct

   An aqueduct of some fifty-five arches northwest of the city, the only one in North Macedonia, whose date is still disputed between the Roman and Ottoman periods. It stands in open ground with no interpretation at all.

   TiqetsKlook
9. 

   9© Ilievski Vladimir · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Sultan Murad Mosque

   The oldest mosque in Skopje, built in 1436 on the site of a monastery destroyed when the Ottomans took the city. Its wooden roof rather than a dome marks it as an early building, and it holds the tombs of Ottoman governors in its yard.

   TiqetsKlook
10. 

    10© Mazbln · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Museum of the City of Skopje

    The city museum, in the old railway station whose clock stopped at seventeen minutes past five on 26 July 1963 — the moment the earthquake struck, killing over a thousand people and destroying most of Skopje. The ruined half of the building was left as the memorial.

    TiqetsKlook

Popular tickets & tours in Skopje

Live products and prices are provided directly by Klook.

KlookOpen Skopje activitiesBrowse tickets & toursKKdayOpen Skopje activitiesBrowse tickets & tours

Trending now

Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

1. 

   1© kallerna · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Macedonia Square

   The main square, eighteen and a half thousand square metres, dominated since 2011 by a twenty-two-metre bronze horseman in a fountain. The figure is Alexander the Great but is officially called Warrior on a Horse, because naming him would have breached an agreement with Greece.

   TiqetsKlook
2. 

   2© kallerna · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Church of St. Clement of Ohrid

   The cathedral of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, completed in 1990 — a cluster of concrete domes rather than a traditional cross plan, and the largest church in the country. It was built while the church was still unrecognised by the other Orthodox patriarchates.

   TiqetsKlook
3. 

   3© User:Vmenkov · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Šuto Orizari

   A district of Skopje and the seat of Šuto Orizari municipality, generally called Šutka. It is regarded as the cultural centre of the Roma of North Macedonia and, in the words of its own mayor, the only place in the world where the Roma are organised politically and economically.

   TiqetsKlook
4. 

   4© Martin Brož · CC BY 3.0

   Church of the Ascension of Jesus, Skopje

   A Macedonian Orthodox church on the eastern slope below the Kale fortress in Skopje. Under Ottoman rule no church could stand higher than a mosque, so the floor was dug down; entering through the door, the nave lies below.

   TiqetsKlook
5. 

   5© Dimitar Georgievski from Skopje, Macedonia · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Marko's Monastery

   A monastery eighteen kilometres from the city, finished in the fourteenth century under Prince Marko and named after him. Its church is painted throughout with frescoes of that date and it has been in continuous use since, which few Balkan monasteries can claim.

   TiqetsKlook
6. 

   6© Тиверополник · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Museum of the Macedonian Struggle

   A museum of 2011 on the Macedonian national movement, from the Ottoman period to 1945, told largely through life-size wax figures in staged scenes. The approach is unusual and the politics are explicit.

   TiqetsKlook
7. 

   7© This illustration was made by Rašo. An email to Rašo would be appreciated too · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Holocaust Memorial Center for the Jews of Macedonia

   Museum in Skopje on the Jews of Macedonia. In March 1943 seven thousand eight hundred were deported to Treblinka within three days, and about a dozen returned.

   TiqetsKlook
8. 

   8© Oliver the Macedonian1 · CC BY 2.0

   Museum of the Republic of North Macedonia

   The national museum, in a group of buildings in the old bazaar, covering archaeology, ethnography and the Macedonian question. Its icon collection is the strongest part, gathered from churches across the country.

   TiqetsKlook
9. 

   9

   Matejče Monastery

   A fourteenth-century Orthodox monastery in the village of Matejče on the flank of the Skopska Crna Gora. It stands on the site of a Byzantine church of 1057-59 and first appears by name in a golden bull of the Serbian king Stefan Milutin in 1300.

   TiqetsKlook
10. 

    10© This illustration was made by Rašo. An email to Rašo would be appreciated too · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Tumba Madžari

    A Neolithic settlement northeast of Skopje, regarded as the most important Neolithic site in the Skopje basin. It was found during test excavation ahead of motorway works in 1961-62.

    TiqetsKlook